Nationals' Minniti Travels the U.S. but Calls Old Town Alexandria Home

Brian Minniti sounds like a real estate agent when he describes his Old Town Alexandria neighborhood.

“We love it. It is an electic mix of people in a great location. It is probably my favorite place to live to date,” said Minniti, who lives with his wife Amy near the Braddock Road metro station.

That latter statement is a ringing endorsement, since Minniti moved around a lot when he was younger. But Minniti is not in the real estate business.

He is in a much different profession – Major League Baseball – that keeps him on the road much of the year. An Ohio native who went to high school in York, Pa., Minniti is the assistant general manager of the Washington Nationals.

He was named assistant general manager in November 2009 after spending nine years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the last two as the director of baseball operations.

A 2002 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Minniti said his job requires him to be at Nationals Park for most of the 81 regular-season home games.

“I can drive there in about 15 or 20 minutes,” Minniti told Patch. “We work odd hours. I can drive home late at night” without much trouble. 

So that makes coming home to Old Town even more important for Minniti, who had a double major in Mathematics and Statistics?

The former high school baseball player actually joined the Nationals after his wife, Amy Inlander Minniti, a former attorney in Philadelphia who now works as assistant counsel in the legal department with the Nationals.

She moved to Old Town in 2008 and when Brian was hired by the team the next year they lived near the King Street Metro station before making the move to their current place near the Braddock Road station.

“It is a cool place to be, with all of the restaurants and shops,” Minniti said of Old Town. One of their favorite places to eat is Hard Times Café but “we try to make a point of going to new places all of the time,” he said.

When the Nationals are on the road, Minniti, who played high school baseball, heads out of town to check in on the minor league farm teams of the Nationals.

The teams range from Triple A Syracuse, N.Y., to Double A Harrisburg, Pa., to high Single A Potomac in Woodbridge, to low Single A in Hagerstown, Md., to Auburn, N.Y. in the short-season New York-Penn League to the rookie team in the Gulf Coast League in Florida.

Minniti assists Nationals’ general manager Mike Rizzo is all aspects of baseball operations, including rules compliance, transactions, budgeting and contract negotiations.

“I was fortunate. He needed someone with my skill set to complement him,” he said of Rizzo, who was with Arizona before coming to the Nationals. “It has been a very good match. He has had a long career as an evaluator. We are a nice complement to each other."

Doug Harris, the director of player development for the Nationals, said Minniti has what it takes to one day be the general manager of a Major League team.

"We are fortunate to have him here. As many skills as he possesses on the baseball side, he is an even better person," said Harris, a former James Madison University pitcher who saw action in the minor leagues for the Orioles and Royals. "He is extremely professional. He is unbelievably prepared. He is very organized. I think the world of him but I am a biased guy. We communicate daily, and I appreciate what he offers."

During the last week of July, Minniti said he averaged about four to six hours a sleep per night as the team was very active right up until the non-waiver trade deadline that ended July 31 at 4 p.m.

During the last week before the deadline, the Nationals traded two minor league prospects to the Reds for big league outfielder Jonny Gomes and then traded veteran infielder Jerry Hairston to the Brewers for a minor league prospect.

The Nats received a lot of interest for closer Drew Storen but in the end decided to keep the young pitcher who played at Stanford.

The Nationals also traded veteran pitcher Jason Marquis to Arizona for minor league shortstop Zach Walters.

That meant long days for Minniti as he and Rizzo and the player development staff of the Nationals discussed which players to consider trading and what to look for in return. The Nationals were 52-56 going into Tuesday's home game with Atlanta.

"We are looking at the short term and the long term. We are looking at long-term upgrades," said Minniti, who was planning to leave Wednesday to check out the Nationals' academy in the Dominican Republic. It will be the first international trip for Minniti since he joined the Nationals.